Author

Lawrence Schwartz

CMO at SoftwareONE

Flexera recently hosted an on-demand webinar, “The Game Has Changed – Are You Ready?” regarding the state of Software Asset Management (SAM) in today’s constantly changing world of software. Patrick Winter, CEO of SoftwareONE, joined the webinar as a key partner to Flexera in being able to deliver innovative products and services throughout the SAM category.

The presentation kicked off by talking about risk and how SAM is pivotal to having a comprehensive security plan in place. If you don’t even know what software you own, who is using it, and how, then how can you begin to protect against vulnerabilities that may be out there. Risk, coupled with the fact that the software estate has now expanded past desktops and servers into the cloud; leaves organizations with a challenge in being able to manage the entire software estate, while keeping up with the constantly changing needs of the business.

This speed of change and inability of our customers to keep up, is where SoftwareONE aligns closely with Flexera and brings value to our joint customer base with our deep expertise in SAM and across the software portfolio. Mr. Winter spoke to the five key challenges that both Flexera and SoftwareONE’s customers are facing:

Data quality – this is the first stage that all of our customers struggle with and it is key to getting any SAM practice right. Bad data will deliver bad results. SoftwareONE works with its clients to ensure the right information is being analyzed.

Understanding three key software metrics: Entitlement, Inventory and Consumption (EIC). About 20% of applications are used approximately one time per month; yet 80% of applications aren’t used at all during a single month. Companies need to understand this type of information to optimize their traditional risks, software spend and contracts, while keeping control of growing cloud spend.

Automation – much of SAM today is still based on man power and headcount. If you don’t have enough headcount internally to focus on SAM to deliver the results that internal customers are looking for, your SAM practice will not prove valuable. The ability to automate certain aspects of SAM is key for most organizations.

Integration – SAM technologies must talk to many different types of systems (be it supply chain, procurement, finance, internal change management) and the data needs to flow seamlessly throughout – integration between these systems is fundamental.

Predictability – or in other words, the ability to forecast. SAM, often, is after the fact and in today’s world customers need to be able to forecast and predict how the environment will look one to two years out.

To get through all five phases in a traditional SAM practice is not easy, or fast. It can take up to six to eight years to reach this level of SAM maturity, as there are budget constraints and personnel limitations that dictate how fast or slow the process can be executed.

SoftwareONE has launched SAMSimple – a managed service – that will help our joint customers move through these five stages of SAM at a much faster rate – between 18 to 24 months. SAMSimple helps to drive the value of SAM throughout an organization that may not have the expertise, or budget, in house. Further, SAMSimple is based on a pay-as-you-grow model in that customers only pay if they realize true value from the service. You can view the entire on-demand webinar here and to learn more about SoftwareONE’s SAMSimple offering here.

About Us

Privately owned since 1985, SoftwareONE is redefining the technology solutions landscape as the thought leaders in Software Portfolio Management (SPM) services. By combining our commercial, technology, compliance and governance expertise into a balanced SPM service offering, we support our customers by ensuring their IT investments are cost-effectively roadmapped towards their unique business needs.